


Of Smiles Drawn On Skin In Permanent Ink

by WhatIsExistence



Series: Soulmate AU go brrrr [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Clay | Dream & Technoblade Friendship (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Dream & Technoblade centric, Dream POV, Gen, Not shipping - Freeform, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, just buddies being buddies, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27807214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatIsExistence/pseuds/WhatIsExistence
Summary: At ages five, fourteen, and fifteen, Dream met his soulmates. Ink swirled across skin, painting pictures of lives he was only allowed glimpses of. At ages fourteen, nineteen, and twenty-one, Dream figured out who his soulmates were. Different worlds crashed into each other, the collisions causing each to shatter, and in their ashes, a new one arose.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Soulmate AU go brrrr [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112243
Comments: 36
Kudos: 934
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	Of Smiles Drawn On Skin In Permanent Ink

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Green](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26907403) by [CodeCherry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CodeCherry/pseuds/CodeCherry). 



> This work was inspired by CodeCherry's fic, 'Green'. It's an absolutely beautiful fic, I definitely recommend that you check it out. 
> 
> I'm not going to be using anyone's real name in this btw (except for George of course and anyone else who goes by their real name), so when the characters first meet each other and introduce themselves with their usernames instead of their actual names, just suspend your disbelief.
> 
> Edit: I would just like to reiterate that this fic is 100% platonic. I understand that might be confusing, as this is a soulmate au, which is most commonly found with romantic pairings, but this fic was never intended to be anything other than platonic. Personally, I don't think there's anything in this that's inherently romantic, and I made sure that the world-building for the soulmates structure made it clear that not all soulmates are romantic - in fact, most aren't in this au. Please don't take this fic the wrong way, and please don't ship people that don't want to be shipped.

Here are the rules:

  * Each soulmate gets one part of your body. It might be your left forearm, your right knee, your hand. Anything you write on that part will show up on that soulmates skin, in the exact spot you wrote it.
  * Each soulmate gets a colour. One colour, that’s it, and no matter what they write with, it will always show up in that colour.
  * The amount of soulmates you have is written over your heart. The number stays with you from when you are born until you die. When a soulmate dies, the number drops.
  * You don’t control how old you are when the magic kicks in and your soulmate/s start to see what you write, and it’s not always the same for each soulmate. You might be five when you start to write to one, you might be fifteen for another, and you might have to wait until you’re fifty for someone else.
  * You can’t tell your soulmate any identifying characters about you; not your age, not where you live, not what you look like - and most definitely not your name.



Those are the rules. Good luck :)

Dream was five when he met Pink. He was sitting in the back of class, doodling on his right arm. After tracing flowers and stick figures, he’d settled on drawing smiley faces over and over again, covering his skin with them. He turned over his wrist to draw on it but froze as pink text scrawled itself across his skin. He watched awestruck as the words, nice smiley faces, appeared in messy chicken scratch.

Even as embarrassment made his cheeks burn, Dream grinned. He knew what the words meant. Knew that there could only be one person writing them. He’d heard stories of soulmates his whole life and now that it was finally happening to him, he could barely contain his excitement. In a rush, he put the felt pen to his skin, right underneath the message the stranger had written.

‘Thanks. I’m Dream, what’s your name?’ He wrote. Or at least, that’s what he intended to write. But the second half faded out of existence before his eyes. He stared at his wrist in confusion before remembering the info block his parents had told him about. Oh. Right.

He glared at the blank space, letting out a huff of frustration. He wished he could question this person, learn everything he could about his new soulmate, satisfy the burning curiosity that had been lit inside him. But none of what he wanted to know would get past that info block. So he simply added, ‘it’s nice to meet you’.

A minute later, pink words spelt out, 'you too :)'

He decided to call his soulmate Pink. Not very original, but then again, he was only five.

Pink's words became a regular thing to decorate Dream’s skin and he found that the stranger had the ability to warp time, because he’d pick up a pen to scribble back a reply to his soulmate, only to look up and find the teacher staring down at him with an accusation in her eyes, the echo of the bell ringing in his ears and a blank sheet of work in front of him. But despite the guilt and the scolding of both her and their parents, he never regretted talking to Pink instead of doing his work.

Pink was dry and sarcastic and he could never really tell when they were joking. Pink also seemed to find hilarity in the fact that the first thing from Dream they’d ever seen had been a swarm of smiley faces, for they made a point to make sure that there was never a moment when the latter’s arm wasn’t covered in them. Between that and the writing that was crammed between the pictures, moments when Dream’s arm wasn’t covered in ink were rare.

He wondered what colour he was to Pink. When he asked, his soulmate replied with 'lime green'. He’d wrinkled his nose at this piece of information. Who wanted to be lime green?

When he’d told Pink as much, they’d replied with, 'green’s my favourite colour'. ‘Oh’, He’d said, wavering on whether he should apologise or not. When he had, Pink had replied with, 'get a green backpack and we’ll call it even'. Of course, an army of smiley faces had accompanied the sentence. Dream had laughed and though he was pretty sure they were kidding, he still begged his mum for a green backpack until she finally caved.

Dream couldn’t ask for Pink’s name or where they were from or even their gender. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t try. He spent hours brainstorming loopholes, ways to word his questions so that they could slip through the chinks in the armour of the block. But to his confusion and disappointment, when he asked Pink the questions they didn’t answer.

When he wrote, 'how many hours ago did school finish for you?' in an effort to figure out their time zone, Pink didn’t respond until two days later, and even then, only to draw more smiley faces on his arm. Dream felt like his heart had been ripped out. He’d only known Pink for a month but without them, it suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe. It terrified him.

It was a week until things returned to normal but when Dream felt like things had settled enough to ask the question again, Pink vanished for a whole week this time. So he stopped asking questions. The curiosity and desperation to meet, to find them, to have something more than these glorious snippets ate at him but if the price for the answers he craved was the loss of Pink then he would put that curiosity aside.

The years passed and apart from his right arm, which was always covered in past conversations with Pink and the ever-present smiley faces, his limbs remained blank. So much time passed that he started to wonder if he only had one soulmate. When he confided this thought in his mother, she reminded him of the number on his chest: three. Three soulmates. This fact is as unchangeable as the mark itself, she told him. He nodded but secretly he worried that something had gone wrong.

He confided this in Pink and they told him that their mother hadn’t gotten her last soulmate until she was 37. He knew that Pink had meant it to be comforting but it just made him more concerned.

Dream was fourteen when an explanation of conduction appeared on his right thigh in bright orange writing. His eyes widened and he barely held back a squeal that definitely would have haunted him for the rest of the year. _His second soulmate_.

All the oxygen was knocked out of his lungs and he stared at the writing with wide eyes. His soulmate. His second soulmate. They were here, they were real, there hadn’t been a mistake. He grabbed a pen and scribbled down, 'hey', before even bothering to read the rest of the writing.

He pulled up his shorts a fraction to better read his soulmate’s words. The writing covered his entire upper leg and clamped a hand over his mouth to keep the emotion from spilling over. He couldn’t believe it. His soulmate. He lowered his hand.

While he ecstatically anticipated his soulmate's reply, he read the rest of the writing and found that they all seemed to be science facts. Why would his soulmate write that on their leg? If it was science notes, why wouldn’t they write them on their hand- oh. He barely held in a laugh, clamping a hand covered in pink over his mouth. His maths teacher gave him a dirty look. Dream ignored him, far too happy to care. He wrote, 'stop trying to cheat your science test'.

A few minutes that lasted a millennia later, he was answered with, 'holy shit'. He snorted.

“Mr Davis, is there something wrong?” The teacher snapped.

“Oh, no sir,” He quickly replied as he looked up and fixed his attention on the board.

“I should hope not. I would like to remind you that it is not appropriate to be distracted during class.” Dream bit back a retort and despite every cell in his body telling him to check his leg, he placed his hands on his desk and ignored the writing. If he read it, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from responding. Despite how much it was killing him to ignore his newly found soulmate, he couldn’t afford to get another detention.

By the end of the lesson, he was a complete wreck of nerves and excitement. He barely restrained himself from sprinting to the bathrooms, instead speed walking down the corridor and barricading himself into the first empty stall he found. He harshly tugged up his pant leg, searching desperately through the sea of orange for his soulmate’s reply. Finally, he located their original response.

'Ngl, this was a big surprise', was written next to it. 'Same' he answered, writing so fast that his handwriting was barely legible. His vision turned blurry and he wiped away the joyful tears. 'I was actually starting to think that I never would. I’m glad I did though :)'

He didn’t know why he added the smiley face. Just habit, he supposed, picked up from Pink. He hurriedly let Pink know of how they’d infected him, telling them, 'nooooo, I just drew :) to my other soulmate in my second sentence ever to them, what have you done to me?'

When he checked his thigh, he saw that Orange had responded. 'It’s nice to meet you too, Smiles'. He let out a groan at the nickname, cursing Pink. You draw smiley faces on your arm one time in primary and you’re never allowed to forget, huh? He found it hard to be truly upset though.

'Say, can you help me cheat?' He laughed at the request, more tears spilling down his cheeks. 'Come on, it’d be a genius move'.

'No. You have to fail on your own'

'You’re a bully :('

'I know :)'

Orange was spikey and fiery and lived up to their colour in every regard. Unlike Pink, they were more than happy to try their best to get through the info block. They often wrote to each other late in the night, plotting ways to find each other.

Seven months after meeting them, Dream finally figured out how to get his number past the block by spacing out when he sent each individual number by a week.

He anxiously sat on his bed, tapping the screen of his phone as he waited for Orange to find the last piece of the puzzle and call him. He glanced down to his right arm. Pink had spent the last few days covering literally every centimeter of it in smiley faces. The pair hadn’t spoken for two days. Sometimes that happened. Pink got quiet and their conversations dwindled. It was never permanent though and the smiley faces continued to reliably appear, usually in triple their usual numbers, so Dream always knew that everything was okay-

his phone rang.

He jumped, his heart leaping into his throat as it attempted to escape. With his heart hammering in his chest, he scrambled to press the accept call button. Over the roar in his ears, he heard a voice call out, “Hello?”

“Hey,” Breathlessly, Dream replied. The universe held its breath and the stars hung in the balance. White noise came out of the phone as both of them struggled to figure out what to say. Eventually, he heard them utter, “I’m Sapnap. What’s your name?”

It took a moment for it to register. Sapnap. He held that piece of information up to his knowledge of Orange, trying to align it with his perception of his soulmate. Trying to figure out how everything that Orange was could be summed up by these two syllables. Sapnap. Yes, he could see it now. He could see how this name could encapsulate this person, could contain everything that he was. Sapnap.

“What’s your name?” Sapnap repeated, reminding Dream that he needed to answer.

“My name’s Dream,” He told him. There was a pause on Sapnap’s end as he too recalibrated his brain to accommodate this information.

“It’s nice to meet you properly, Dream,” He finally said. Dream could hear his smile in his voice.

'What do you want to be when you grow up?'

The question had been staring at Dream all through class. He knew what he wanted to answer with but he didn’t know if Pink would approve. He desperately wanted them to. Pink had been with them for nearly ten years and he didn’t know what he’d do if they disagreed with his hopes for his future.

'I think I want to do something in gaming or coding', he finally had the courage to reply. Mere seconds later, words winded their way through the maze of smileys.

'Like youtube and streaming?'

Dream’s stomach flipped but as more smiley faces appeared around the words, his nerves calmed. This was Pink. He knew them. If there was anyone he could trust, it was them. After nearly a decade, did he really think they’d judge him for this?

'Pretty much'

'Nice. Same here. I’ve just started a Minecraft youtube channel, actually. When you become famous we should totally collab'

Dream laughed and then pursed his lips, relief flooding him. What had he expected though? Mocking ridicule? Come on. This was Pink he was talking about. Despite the thick layer of jokes and sarcasm and banter, he was pretty sure they were incapable of hurting his feelings on purpose. Even occasions where a joke didn’t land or insincere jabs cut deeper than intended had become an endangered species as the pair learnt to read each other like a book.

A few months after Dream’s fifteenth birthday, he met George through a coding project. The two hit it off like a lit match and brittle tinder, igniting a fire in Dream whenever the two talked.

The years passed and Sapnap, George, and Dream became inseparable. They became a team. George balanced them out; he provided calm amongst the storms of Dream and Sapnap. If Sap was a wildfire, then George was an ocean. Equally as capable of intensity and passion, but there was a depth and a calmness to him that Sapnap didn’t have. Maybe it was an age thing.

At age nineteen, blue ink found its way onto his right calf. Just a small scribble, the kind you might do when testing if a pen works. A glowing smile spread across Dream’s face as he caught sight of it. His last soulmate.

'Nice to meet you', he greeted.

With a warm heart, he headed to his monitor, sitting down and turning it on. You’d think he’d be used to meeting soulmates by now but he’d been so young when he met Pink that he could barely remember, and with Sapnap, it had just been overwhelming. In his young mind, he’d thought that nine years was such a big gap. An uncrossable distance. He had enough perspective now that his younger self’s idea was laughable. But wasn’t your younger self’s ideas always laughable, looking back?

This time, he was old enough and calm enough to fully appreciate this moment where he crossed paths with someone who was fated to be in his life, one way or another. He looked forward to growing to love them.

He noticed that George and Sapnap were online and he hopped into a vc with them.

“Hey,” He said and was met with a chorus of greetings. “Guys, I just got my last soulmate,” Dream said once the formalities had been exchanged.

“Nice!” Sapnap said. “What’d they say?”

“Nothing yet. I just noticed a blue squiggle on my calf. I’m waiting for them to reply.”

“Wait,” George said slowly.

“Yeah?” Dream asked.

“One second, I need to check something.”

A few moments passed, leaving Dream wondering what George was doing.

“Is that your last soulmate?” Sapnap asked, filling the silence George had left.

“Yeah. How many do you have left?”

“Just one. I only got two.”

Dream nodded.

“Dream,” George said, returning to the conversation. “Did you write ‘nice to meet you’ to your soulmate?”

Dream frowned in both surprise and confusion.

“Yeah,” Slowly, he said. “How did you know that?”

“Cause it’s written on my leg.”

And so Dream put a name to his last soulmate before he’d even had the time to wonder who they could be. Which left only Pink to be found.

What frustrated him was that he could find them, if they’d only let him. He could do what he did with Sapnap and trick the info block into letting his number through. But they seemed adamant on not ‘cheating’, as they put it. Dream didn’t understand it. They were desperate to find their first soulmate. To put a face, a voice, a three dimensional person to the pink text. They didn’t understand how Pink didn’t also feel this burning curiosity. The longing to know the person behind the writing was killing them. There was only so much you could get from words on skin, after all.

At age twenty, Dream started a YouTube channel. When it came to designing his skin, he found himself unconsciously painting a smiley face onto lime green. Thanks to his final, unfound soulmate, the colour had become his favourite. As for the smiley faces, well, they seemed like the only logical thing to establish his brand around. They were the first thing he’d ever connected himself to, the oldest part of his identity. They never left his skin. It seemed like almost a betrayal to not incorporate them.

Thirteen months, two weeks, and six days after George and Dream realized they were soulmates, Sapnap got his second and final soulmate. So did George. Thirteen months, two weeks, and six days after George and Dream realized they were soulmates, Sapnap and George realized they were too.

Dream’s ears rang for hours after Sapnap and George’s screams of delight, which completely obliterated his mic. He was grinning just as widely though. He was happy for them.

Dream turned twenty-one and he became friends with another youtuber, called Technoblade. Though they mainly interacted in the form of the friendly rivalry they formed, there was something surprisingly easy about talking with him. It felt like falling back into old habits. Everything about him gave Dream deja vu but eventually, he had to let the feeling be when he couldn’t figure out why he kept having it.

The way the man spoke, the things he said, his turn of phrase: it made familiarity and comfort come far too easily and quickly with his new friend.

“Hey Dream, do you have soulmates?” Tommy asked. Of course it was Tommy. Who else would ask something like that out of blue?

Soulmates weren’t incredibly private and taboo to talk about or anything, but there definitely was something personal about them. Of course there was. Soulmates were people that had direct access to your skin. They could write anything on it. As such, there was a certain amount of trust that you were forced to have in them. As such, there was a time and place for it. At least in Dream’s opinion. He definitely would not have said that while you were in a vc with someone who was streaming to hundreds of thousands of people was one of those times. Then again, it was Tommyinnit. What had he expected? _Boundaries_?

“Yeah,” Dream replied, holding back an exasperated sigh.

“How many?”

“Three.”

He sprinted through L’Manburg absently, not really doing anything. “I have four.”

“Okay. Cool.”

Oh god, please don’t say that Tommy was one of those people who liked to make the amount of soulmates you had a competition. Dream couldn’t stand those people. Soulmates shouldn’t be a competition, even if you didn’t like the ones you got. You had no control over how many soulmates you get, if any, and as such, worth could in no way be determined from the number you had.

“Have you found any of them?”

Dream’s mind instantly flicked to Sapnap and George, who were both sitting in the vc silently. At this question, Sapnap started giggling. Dream rolled his eyes. It was a wonder people hadn’t figured out that the trio were soulmates on their own by now, thanks to Sap’s inability to keep secrets. He wondered if this would be when it finally was let slip. He found that he wasn’t incredibly opposed to the idea. The only thing that would change would be the way the fans read their interactions, and even then, only slightly.

“Yeah. I’ve found two.”

“What are they like?”

With Sapnap’s barely contained mirth in his ears, Dream replied, “They’re nice. One’s an asshole, but I love him anyway.”

Might as well make as many silent jabs at them as he could, while he was still able to. Sapnap choked, spluttering as Geroge roared with laughter.

“What are you guys laughing at?” Tommy questioned, completely lost.

“Fuck you, Dream!” Sapnap replied, still laughing. Dream shook his head; yeah, the jig was definitely up. He found that he was relatively at peace with that.

“He speaks only the truth,” George wheezed as he laughed uncontrollably.

“I am not an asshole! If anything, you are.”

“Sure, Sap, _sure_ ,” Dream said.

“Wait- wait. Are you guys-?”

“Yes, we’re soulmates, keep up Tommy,” Sapnap answered. Dream’s was tempted to open Tommy’s stream and look at his chat. He knew that it would ultimately just make him anxious though, so he didn’t, despite how badly his curiosity itched. He knew he’d find out people’s reactions eventually.

He tapped his fingers on the desk, pink smiley faces greeting him out of the corner of his eye as always. It soothed the butterflies rioting in his stomach. He’d find out people's reactions when they trended on twitter. And trend they did. Thanks Tommy, he thought with twin amusement and exasperation. Thanks Sapnap.

After their status as soulmates was out, the subject came up with increasing frequency. Just casual comments here and there, mentioning something funny one of them had written or lamenting about a certain phrase stuck on their body. It wasn’t overbearing; it didn’t become the focal point of their friendships, like part of Dream had feared it would. It was light and easy, like the rest of their relationships.

“Hey, Dream, you know how you haven’t found your third soulmate?” Dream frowned, cofused as to what he meant at first. Tommy’s phrasing threw him off. He wasn’t used to thinking of Pink as his third soulmate. They were his oldest one, the one who he couldn’t remember a time without. For nearly a decade, they weren’t just his first but his only soulmate. He grew up with them; they shaped his childhood. Thinking of them as his third or his last felt… wrong. Incorrect. Regardless, he let it go. It only mattered to him.

“Oh my god, don’t start this again,” Wilbur groaned. Technoblade’s laughter filled the call.

“At least there’s no one to accidently out as his soulmate this time,” He pointed out.

“Hey, Sapnap did that to himself,” Tommy retorted. Dream shook his head.

“What about my soulmate, Tommy?”

“Well, what’s the bet that they watch your channel? Cause I mean, you have a lot of subscribers. There’s a good chance you’re soulmate’s watched your videos, or at least heard of you. If you wanted to, you could probably use your platform to find them.”

Silence. Dream blinked. He… hadn’t thought of that.

“Oh shit,” Wilbur laughed. “He’s right. That’s actually a good idea, if you wanted to.”

Dream looked down at his keyboard, the possibilities flooding his brain. They were right. If he wanted to bad enough, there was a distinct possibility he could potentially reach his soulmate through YouTube. Plus, they were a youtuber themself - though they were pretty certain that they were a small creator - so the chance was even higher.

Then again, if his soulmate was a fan of his… Discomfort at the idea of them putting him on the pedestal that so many of his fans put him on made his skin crawl. He conjured an image of Pink sitting at a computer, shock dawning on them as they realized the person they were watching was their soulmate. The scene seemed so… unnatural. So fiercely un-Pink that he couldn't help but laugh at it. The idea of Pink fangirling over him seemed ludicrous. The idea of Pink fangirling over _anyone_ seemed ludicrous. They were many things, but someone who cared about how much clout someone had didn’t strike him as one of them. That, and they definitely had too much pride to ever stoop so low. Now that he thought about it, he was confident that if they did meet on the terms Tommy was proposing, they would still be equals. Pink would never allow anything less.

“Maybe,” He mused. “Maybe.”

“You’d have to wade through thousands of fakes though,” Techno pointed out. “Everyone would be trying to trick you into thinking that they’re actually your soulmate.”

“True, true,” Dream acknowledged. “Oh god.” He could picture it now. Having to sift through countless false responses, fact checking them with hope only to be met with disappointment when they couldn’t back themselves up. “That would be hell.”

“It would,” Techno agreed.

“Hey Techno, have you met any of your soulmates?” Tommy asked curiously. He was met with silence from Techno. Dream had to admit, he was curious about his answer. He’d never heard Techno mention anything to do with his soulmates. He’d always assumed that he just didn’t have any but Tommy seemed quite certain that he did.

“...Tommy,” Pointedly, Techno said slowly. “Think about what you just said.”

Dream frowned in confusion. He seemed to be the only one though because Wilbur started dying of laughter and a moment later, Tommy said, “Oh,” with the air of someone who’d just forgotten what 2+2 is.

“But to answer your question, I have met all of my soulmates and found three out of four,” Techno said without providing context for the silent exchange that had gone on between the three other boys. Wilbur kept laughing, though it got quieter as the air was emptied from his lungs. Dream could imagine him clutching his sides as he desperately tried to stop.

“What’s the fourth one like? Tommy asked.

“Hold on,” Dream interjected. “I thought we were finding _my_ soulmate?”

Wilbur let out a strangled wheeze and Techno snorted.

“Do you want to?” Tommy said with both surprise and excitement.

“I mean, sure,” Dream shrugged. He hadn’t been entirely serious but why the hell not? It probably wouldn’t amount to anything at all and if it did, then that was a lucky bonus, wasn’t it? His heart accelerated at the thought of finally putting a name and a face to this person he’d known for sixteen years. He found himself sitting up straighter despite what he’d just told himself about the low stakes.

“How are we going to do this?” Tommy asked.

“I dunno, it’s your idea.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Wilbur said, still out of breath. Dream made a mental note to interrogate them later about what Techno had meant when he'd told Tommy to think about what he'd said. “What’s the last thing you wrote to them?”

Dream glanced down to his arm, scouring the skin for their latest conversation, hidden among the field of drawings. He let out a wheeze when he reread it.

“The last thing I wrote to them was ‘just murdered a child, feeling good’.”

The call erupted into laughter once more.

“Wait, what?” Tommy said through the mirth.

“It was just after I killed you, Tommy. I wrote that to them. They know it was in a video game, by the way. They don’t think I was going around killing children," He quickly added.

“What? They don’t? Lame,” Techno deadpanned.

“I know, right? Imagine not letting your soulmate think you’re a child murderer,” Wilbur grinned. This seemed far more hilarious to Tommy and Techno than it should have been; Dream shook his head at what was clearly an inside jokes.

“I know, I know. It’s very cringe of me,” He agreed. “But you know. If I ever did find them, I might not want them to call the cops on me, ya know? But that might just be a personal preference.”

“Soulmate sending you to jail pog?” Techno offered.

“What’s the point of having soulmates if they can’t send you to jail?” Wilbur agreed.

Dream cracked up, running an almost entirely pink hand through his hair. Pink was in one of his quiet moods, which meant that while words from them were rare at the moment, there were so many smiley faces that Dream was pretty sure they were going to get ink poisoning. And yet, not an hour passed when more weren’t added to the collection. The colour pink was never more vibrant on Dream’s skin than during Pink’s quiet moods.

Fuck, he loved them, he suddenly thought at the flash of colour. God, he loved this person with every inch of his being. He wanted them in his life so badly part of him thought he might drown in this want. He was in so fucking deep that at this point, he honestly know what he’d do if they disappeared. If those smiley faces stopped coming, he didn’t know how he’d cope so he pushed that possibility aside.

“Dream?”

He blinked. “Sorry, yes. Uh… Soulmates. Finding soulmates.”

“You good?” Techno asked.

“Yeah, I just got distracted.”

“Well, there is no time for distractions! We have a soulmate to find!” Wilbur declared in an overly dramatic fashion. “What’s something we could use to find them?"

Dream hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to let that piece of information out.

“Umm… well, probably the smiley faces,” He answered anyway.

“The smiley faces?” Techno echoed.

“Yeah. They um… They draw a lot of smiley faces on their arm. There’s never a time when they’re not there. At the moment there’s like, a hundred.”

“Okay, okay,” Wilbur said. “That’s something we can use. So if your soulmate appears on your arm - which arm?”

“Right.”

“Do you know what colour you are?””

“Lime green,” He supplied with a beating heart.

“Wait, did you design your minecraft skin based off of that?” Surprised, Wilbur asked.

“I did,” He admitted.

“That’s so sappy,” Tommy complained.

“Yeah, well,” He shrugged in non-commitment. “

So, folks, you heard it here first. If you have a fuckton of smiley faces on your right arm and your soulmate appears in green, uh, hit Dream up on twitter with the hashtag ‘time to scam dream into thinking im his soulmate’.”

Dream let out a wheeze and Tommy roared with laughter.

“No, no, no, no,” He said as he laughed. “Don’t- guys, don’t lie.”

“No, no, don’t lie. But still use that hashtag because it’s fucking hilarious.”

Dream wheezed again.

“Dream,” Techno said suddenly, sounding like he was million years away from their current conversation. “Did you say that your arm’s covered in smiley faces?”

“Yeah? Why?” “They’re not… Your soulmate’s colour isn’t.. Isn’t pink, is it?”

Dream paused, frowning. How had Techno guessed that?

“Yeah, they are. How did you know?”

“...Lucky guess.”

He was lying. It was so, so obvious. And it was so, so easy as to guess why. Dream stared at the monitor as a thousand tons of stone was dropped onto his head. It spilled down his shoulders, crashing over his skull. It settled on his chest, crushing his lungs so oxygen couldn’t be sucked in. He’d thought it would be a lot harder to find his soulmate than that.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew that it had not just been a lucky guess. Not with the prior questioning being what it had been and the tone of his voice. As the dust settled and this knowledge slipped into place, he realized that it wasn’t all that surprising. When he’d met him, everything about Techno had rung a bell. Had reminded him of someone. Now he knew why.

Dream continued with their conversation like nothing had happened. By the time they’d extorted the subject for all it was worth, #timetoscamdreamintothinkingimhissoulmate was trending on twitter. Of course it was. No one was surprised. Dream knew he wouldn’t check any of the tweets though.

The moment he left Tommy’s stream, Dream hopped into Techno’s vc.

“Hey,” He said. The word hung in the air like an olive branch, held up by the tension between them.

“Hallo,” Techno greeted. Silence rang. It was clear that neither of them knew what to say. Dream had used up all of his patience over the last sixteen years though, so he bit the bullet.

“Are you my soulmate?” He said bluntly.

Four seconds passed. Four seconds in which Dream saw disappointment and frustration and hopelessness flash past his eyes as he imagined what it would be like if Techno said no. If he’d just jumped to a wrong conclusion. 

“Yes,” Techno said, so quietly that Dream, lost in his worries and anxiety, almost missed it. Almost. Dream's eyes widened and  he sucked in a breath. “At least, I think I am. Either way, I’ve been drawing smiley faces on my arm since I was five, because my soulmate decided to cover  _ my _ arm in them when we first met."

Dream let out a laugh; it was less about Techno’s joke and more about letting the relief and ehlation and overwhelming emotions out. 

“Fuck,” He breathed, running a hand through his hair. “ _ Fuck _ .” 

“It’s nice to meet you,” Techno offered. “I mean like… Not you, you, but my soulmate. It’s nice to know that you’re the person I’ve been writing to all this time.”

“Yeah, you too. I knew something about you was familiar.”

They talked for nearly an hour and something about their conversation was oh so familiar. This time, it was easy for Dream to point to the reason why. 


End file.
